Solar for my own house

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BackCountry

BackCountry

Electrician
Location
Southern California
Occupation
Licensed Electrician and General Contractor
Nothing worse than being an electrical contractor and deciding what solar system to put on your new house as the end of California NEM2 draws near:

I’m building a new house (I swear this is the last one, or so I tell my wife) and I’ve got one shot at PV because our state has ended the more gracious NEM program as of April 15th, so I’ve got to decide what to go with.

We almost exclusively install Enphase in the residential sector. It’ll be an all electric house with an EV, I’m inclined to max out the IQ8+ and Ensemble storage combo, but then… part of me thinks do I do SolarEdge?

Further: it’s a 3400sqft house with a detached shop and granny unit, if I install a 400A service… is it just for show? It’s not like the utility service wire is any larger, and I won’t be restricted by the 120% rule because of the ATS on the storage interface.

I welcome all thoughts on what you’d do if it were your house.
 
BackCountry said:
Nothing worse than being an electrical contractor and deciding what solar system to put on your new house as the end of California NEM2 draws near:

I’m building a new house (I swear this is the last one, or so I tell my wife) and I’ve got one shot at PV because our state has ended the more gracious NEM program as of April 15th, so I’ve got to decide what to go with.

We almost exclusively install Enphase in the residential sector. It’ll be an all electric house with an EV, I’m inclined to max out the IQ8+ and Ensemble storage combo, but then… part of me thinks do I do SolarEdge?

Further: it’s a 3400sqft house with a detached shop and granny unit, if I install a 400A service… is it just for show? It’s not like the utility service wire is any larger, and I won’t be restricted by the 120% rule because of the ATS on the storage interface.

I welcome all thoughts on what you’d do if it were your house.
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I like true panelboards. I used a Siemens P1 at my house. It has a 250A bus. But I didn't need Afci's, might want to check bolt on AFCI cost and availability. I hate SQ D, but I believe their panelboards can take both bolt on and stab on.

Keep 230.40 exception #3 in mind, might work out well with the two separate structures.
 
electrofelon said:
I like true panelboards. I used a Siemens P1 at my house. It has a 250A bus. But I didn't need Afci's, might want to check bolt on AFCI cost and availability. I hate SQ D, but I believe their panelboards can take both bolt on and stab on.

Keep 230.40 exception #3 in mind, might work out well with the two separate structures.
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I’ve been thinking about that… with the 200A limitation of all of the backup interfaces, we usually just back up one 200A disconnect off of a 400/320 panel. I could just do a 400A meter socket and take one to a backup interface and the other to a non critical loads panel. Hmmmm.
 
electrofelon said:
I like true panelboards. I used a Siemens P1 at my house. It has a 250A bus. But I didn't need Afci's, might want to check bolt on AFCI cost and availability. I hate SQ D, but I believe their panelboards can take both bolt on and stab on.

Keep 230.40 exception #3 in mind, might work out well with the two separate structures.
Click to expand...

I did check, I prefer Siemens too but their panel boards only take bolt on breakers.

Square D NQ panel boards take plug on QO breakers, so from an availability standpoint… it seems to me like plug on would be a better choice.

I’m thinking I can do a 400A meter main on the detached granny unit, and then run a feeder to a gutter in the main house basement. There, I split that feeder to whatever solar backup ATS I go with to a backup loads panel board, and then take another 200a panel board and do all non critical loads off of that. I can gutter between them on the bottom in case I ever want to move a load from backup to non backup or vice versa.

The question is: do I do Enphase or SolarEdge.

I’ve calculated I can do 52 modules max.
 
No genny? Can your array and ESS get you through 3-4 days of blackout if it's raining as well?
 
gadfly56 said:
No genny? Can your array and ESS get you through 3-4 days of blackout if it's raining as well?
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If he's judicious with the backed up loads... Possibly.

I've specified one 10kwh battery for essentially loads for 24hrs for a number of clients, with smaller houses. He wants four 10kwh batteries. Plus unless it really downpours with heavy cloud cover for 4 days straight, his huge proposed array will probably recharge one of those batteries in that time, even in the rain.
 
jaggedben said:
If he's judicious with the backed up loads... Possibly.

I've specified one 10kwh battery for essentially loads for 24hrs for a number of clients, with smaller houses. He wants four 10kwh batteries. Plus unless it really downpours with heavy cloud cover for 4 days straight, his huge proposed array will probably recharge one of those batteries in that time, even in the rain.
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I can always add one, I’ll have conduit stubbed out all over. I was trying my best to ditch gas this time :)

I submitted the NEM2 PTO app today at 52 mods.

It doesn’t rain too often here (12 inches a year) except for this year which is crazy.
 
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